Krauthammer: Snowden not vindicated

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer on Monday noted that even while the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s spying network is in question, “it isn’t as if Snowden is vindicated.”

Krauthammer’s comments on Fox News follow U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling in favor of five plaintiffs challenging the NSA’s collection of their phone metadata. Judge Leon on Monday ruled only on those specific cases, but his ruling could invite broader appeals.

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“He’s only one judge. We have no idea how this would end up in the Supreme Court,” explained Krauthammer on Fox News Monday. “What [Judge] Leon is arguing is that the use of this phone, the way this information is more detailed today, is different than it was in the ’70s and thus it is an invasion of the Fourth Amendment.”

Even as the constitutionality of the bulk metadata collection program is being reviewed, Krauthammer was careful not to praise NSA leaker Edward Snowden, whose leaks revealed the existence of the program.

“[T]hat issue is yet undetermined and there is no definitive ruling yet. So it isn’t as if Snowden is vindicated. He is not a constitutional lawyer and if he was interested in this, he would have leaked only this instead of taking everything that he had into Russia and China and kept it from the authorities.”